Vancouver, Canada – 23 October 2002 - fSONA Communications, designer and manufacturer of the award-winning SONAbeam™ family of products, today announced the availability of the SONAbeam™ 270-M for digital video transport.

The SONAbeam™ 270-M is part of a family of products that offer wireless transmission of digital video and has been designed especially for SMPTE standards 259-M C and D at 270 or 360 megabits per second (Mbps). The SONAbeam™ family supports digital video standards including HDTV, SDI and DVB-ASI. SONAbeam™ interfaces optically to multiplexers, encoders/decoders, switches and routers to support analog formats such as NTSC or PAL. Because SONAbeam™ offers datarate adaptive products, they can be configured to support all specialized video standards up to 1500 Mbps. If your video equipment requires an electrical interface, SONAbeam™ may connect via an inexpensive “media” converter.

SONAbeam™ allows you to extend your digital video across networks to remote production locations. Often, this network delivery results in equipment savings since costly video processing equipment can be centralized. Real-time transmission means production facilities can be across the street, down the block or around the globe. When production facilities move, the SONAbeam™ can be redeployed to the new location.

“The SONAbeam™ 270-M provides a positive return on investment (ROI) to Media and Entertainment companies even with their tight budgets and impossible timelines. This optical link requires no licensing from regulatory agencies, and can be deployed in hours, not months. Productions can now deliver uncompressed digitized content directly from the source, in a secure and cost effective manner, to various remote locations.” says Mehmood Merali, Director of Media and Entertainment, fSONA Communications. “Unlike Microwave or other forms of wireless technology, SONAbeam™ is an extremely secure technology that will protect your content from potential ‘eavesdroppers’.”

SONAbeam™ FSO technology uses eye-safe, invisible beams of light to deliver high-speed wireless communications. From rooftops or windows, balconies or towers. SONAbeam™ systems do not require licenses, are virtually impossible to eavesdrop on or intercept, and have negligible latency and jitter. By transmitting through the atmosphere, SONAbeam™ dispenses with the substantial costs and delays of digging or getting rights-of-way to install a physical fiber link.

About fSONA
fSONA Systems is recognized as the preferred provider of optical wireless solutions for government, enterprise and service provider markets around the globe. Leveraging leading edge advancements in 1550nm optical transmission, the SONAbeam™ family of systems, based on free-space-optics (FSO), use a globally unlicensed, wireless technology to provide speeds up to 2.5 Gbps over distances up to 7km. For more information visit www.fsona.com or www.free-space-optics.org

Further Information
For more information about fSONA, SONAbeam or Free-Space Optical Wireless, please contact:

604-273-6333
media@fsona.com

fSONA and SONAbeam® are trademarks of fSONA Networks. All other trademarks are properties of their respective companies.